UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Senior students and faculty in the Graphic Design program at Penn State made a strong showing in the 2019 Graphis New Talent Annual Award competition with two projects earning top honors (Platinum Awards) and another eight earning Gold and Silver Awards.

Nick Wilson, Amelia Ball and Noemie Noullet earned a Platinum Award in the Design, Branding category for their Converse Chuck 70s submission, which is a full branding campaign for the Converse Chuck 70 High Top sneaker. The campaign, which was developed for Associate Professor Ryan Russell’s Applied Communications course in the spring, included deliverables that span across physical and digital mediums, including the design of two shoe boxes, posters, store displays and styling photography.

Also earning a Platinum Award in the same category were all graphic design seniors who will graduate in 2019, along with Emeritus Professor Kristin Sommese, who recently retired after 30 years at Penn State. Their assignment was to create and brand a design experience to exhibit the program’s summer internships. The campaign, which was aptly named 19: A Design Experience, was developed around the concept of the number 19, a significant number as it reflects the number of students in the senior class and their graduation year.

Russell won four Gold Awards for the following projects in the Video, Film Titles category, along with students from his Applied Communications course:

• Goodfellas with Daniel Ziegler;
• Amelie with Emily Adar;
• Hugo with Colleen Wade; and
• Suspiria with Eleanor Wing.

Sommese and three students picked up four Silver Awards:

• Two with Adar for their projects Social Magazine and World of Dreams in the Design, Editorial and Design, Poster categories, respectively; and
• Feverdream with Wing and Exposed with Kayla Corazzi, both in the Design, Book category.

Russell, Sommese and several students earned Honorable Mention recognition for their work in the following categories: Design, Branding; Photography, Portraits; Design, Book; Design, Editorial; and Design, Poster.

Graphis, an international publisher of books focused on communication design, presents and promotes the work of exceptional talent in design, advertising, photography and art/illustration. The company’s New Talent Award competition is the most respected international student design competition that showcases the best advertising and design student work produced in the past year.

All of the projects selected for 2019 New Talent Awards can be found on the Graphis website.